On the first preparatory Sunday of Great Lent, 9 February 2025, His Holiness Serbian Patriarch kyr Porfirije served the Holy Hierarchical Liturgy at the Church of Saint Sava on Vračar.
 
After the reading of the Gospel passage about the humble publican and the proud, self-sufficient Pharisee, His Holiness delivered a sermon: – Such a state (of the proud Pharisee, ed. note) destroys communion, which is the only normal, correct, healthy, and God-blessed way of our existence. And communion always involves the other – regardless of who they are – but it also requires the effort of our humility. It means measuring ourselves against Christ, evaluating ourselves through Christ’s Gospel, making Him our mirror; measuring ourselves against the saints of God, measuring ourselves by the need to grow through effort, in every virtue, in spiritual struggle, striving always to be better – better in Christ. And that means identifying with Him, Who showed the utmost humility toward us. He, the perfect God, without beginning and without limits, infinite, took upon Himself all that we are and all that He, by His nature, is not. He limited Himself to our measure of existence so that we might identify with Him in love and in that ultimate, boundless humility demonstrated by the publican.
 
Serving alongside His Holiness Patriarch kyr Porfirije were Their Graces Vicar Bishops Petar of Toplica and Nikon of Jenopolje; Protopresbyter-Stavrophoros Dimitrios Kasapis; Protopresbyters Đorđe Stojisavljević, Nenad Jovanović, Jordan Marko (Diocese of Budimlje and Nikšić), Dragan Šovljanski, Predrag Prodić, and Ivan Štrbački; Presbyters Miroslav Vasić, Dalibor Stojadinović, and Vladimir Blagojević; Protodeacons Dragan Radić, Radomir Vrućinić, and Mladen Kovačević; as well as Deacon Vasilije Perić.